Actually, thanks to my wiseguy wife, I will be doing something more than goofing off on vacation. I\u2019ll be reading. Books.<\/p>\n
One day, earlier this year, out of the blue, she declared with somber seriousness that we had fallen <\/b>into a malign rut: We\u2019d wake up, put on some coffee, empty the dishwasher, then click on the TV. We would watch the morning news, and it\u2019s all weather disasters, airline near-misses, and Trump being Trump, pictures of kids dying in Gaza, civilians bombed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
It is, without a doubt, a lousy way to start the day, worse than reading those same stories in the newspaper, because the televised images are so visceral. <\/p>\n
We\u2019d finish our coffee, get up off the couch, sigh heavily and think, \u201cWell, this day is going to be terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
So my wife\u2019s idea was to introduce a new morning routine, in which we get up, put on coffee, empty the dishwasher, grab a cup of coffee, climb back into bed, prop up the pillows, and then open and read actual books. Ideally, they\u2019re novels, but they can be whatever strikes our fancy, as long as they\u2019re books. We have to read for at least an hour. Audio books don\u2019t count.<\/p>\n
When she suggested this, it occurred to me that I hadn\u2019t read a novel or a good nonfiction book for a long time. Instead, I was reading newspapers, magazines, newsletters, Substack. Instead of watching reality TV, I was reading reality.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the deal: If Dan Shaughnessy can run a mile every day, I can read a book for an hour every day.<\/p>\n
It has been liberating and exhilarating. It\u2019s like doing 10,000 steps, but <\/b>for your brain.<\/p>\n
Since the new routine began, everything I\u2019ve read is worth being on a summer reading list.<\/p>\n
\u201cI See You\u2019ve Called in Dead,\u201d a laugh-out-loud novel by John Kenney about an obituary writer who gets fired for posting his own obit when he was still very much alive; \u201cWomen And Children First,\u201d a brilliant debut novel by Alina Grabowski, who grew up in Massachusetts, that depicts a tragedy from the perspective of women in a fictional North Shore town with the voice of someone who actually grew up in such a place.<\/p>\n
Jacqueline Sullivan Wyco\u2019s \u201cFear Knocked: It Was Alzheimer\u2019s,\u201d a memoir about her Boston firefighter dad\u2019s journey through that terrible disease, and the financial exploitation that often destroys the finances of families trying to navigate it, hit close to home. Best book on Alzheimer\u2019s since Charlie Pierce\u2019s \u201cHard to Forget\u201d was published, gulp, 25 years ago.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d like Graydon Carter\u2019s memoir, \u201cWhen The Going Was Good,\u201d given his editorship of Vanity Fair seemed so obsessed with shallow celebrity, despite also publishing the brilliant journalism of, among others, Marie Brenner, Christopher Hitchens, David Halberstam, Maureen Orth, and Dominick Dunne. But never judge a book by its cover. It\u2019s a great read. Carter, with an assist from ghostwriter James Fox, gives a rousing tour of the golden age of magazines, not just Vanity Fair, but Time and Life and some hilarious takes on Spy magazine, which Carter edited with Kurt Andersen. The takedowns of Big Apple big egos pulled off by Spy more than make up for all the celebrity name-dropping. Besides, Carter grew up in Canada playing hockey as a kid. <\/b>How can you not like a hockey guy?<\/p>\n
Years ago, I read a couple of Zadie Smith\u2019s books. The new routine gave me the excuse to read one I missed when it was first published 13 years ago: \u201cNW.\u201d She captures as only she can a Northwest London near where I lived with my family in the late 1990s and early 2000s.<\/p>\n
And while I will goof off on vacation, I will also read books, or more precisely re-read books \u2014 including classics from as far back as high school \u2014 that were so good I want to read them again: \u201cTo Kill a Mockingbird,\u201d by Harper Lee, \u201cSlaughterhouse-Five,\u201d by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., \u201cAdventures of Huckleberry Finn,\u201d by Mark Twain, \u201cNative Son,\u201d by Richard Wright, \u201cCatch-22,\u201d by Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison\u2019s \u201cBeloved.\u201d<\/p>\n
I will not try and fail to get through \u201cUlysses\u201d for a fourth time, but I will make it up to Mr. Joyce by re-reading \u201cDubliners\u201d for probably the fifth time.<\/p>\n
All of this life-affirming, new, old routine, thanks to my wife, who doesn\u2019t get nearly enough credit for putting up with me all these years.<\/p>\n
She could write a book about it.<\/p>\n